"Many times, you know you can win, but someone plays better than you." And sometimes, you don't play well enough, but you can win the championship. It feels like today, that's it. ”
Early this morning Beijing time, after winning the traditional golf tournament, Jordan Spieth said the above words.
It was Spieth's 13th PGA Tour title, but the process was a series of twists and turns — Peter Pan, who was three strokes behind and started in the penultimate group 6, and despite two magical shots on the first five holes, stumbled and crossed at 66, one stroke behind the leader, Sean Laurie. However, while waiting for the result in the clubhouse, he saw that his opponents were falling behind one by one.
First Laurie swallowed a double bogey in the water; Austrian Sepp Straka originally chased Spieth, but swallowed a bogey in the last hole; Harold Varna III, who led the departure, saved all 9 holes and finally only 1 shot behind Spieth; only Patrick Cantley equaled Peter Pan, and the last hole also had the opportunity to push the championship, but unfortunately the 5-yard birdie missed the push, so he had to add a hole to compete with Spieth.
This is Spieth's five-year entry into the long-lost PGA TOUR plus hole race, but it is the fourth time Cantley has experienced in the past ten months. After losing to Scotty Schaufler at the Phoenix Open in February, God once again did not side with the "Iceman" - both of them hit the green and scored into the bunker, Cantley was trapped in a "poached egg" and could not save the pa, while Spieth hit a perfect digging shot, sending the ball accurately to 10 centimeters next to the cup, and everything won!
Spiesga Cave staged a god-cut kill
'I not only had to catch the birds myself, but I had to rely on someone else to help me, and I was lucky enough to be able to compete for the title in the extra hole, and although my ball was in the bunker, the ball position was obviously much better than Patrick's." Spieth was deeply congratulated after the game.
Compared to the last victory at the Texas Open last April, which broke the four-year championship drought, winning the title this morning is also very significant for Peter Pan – it was his first championship trophy since he became a father in early December last year! No wonder that at the end of the overtime race, wife Annie held her son Sammy, who was less than half a year old, and trotted to Spieth's side to enjoy the celebration of the family of three.
Spieth celebrates the victory with his wife and newborn son
And after winning the PGA TOUR's 13th title, Spieth jumped to No. 10 in the world rankings — his first return to the world's top 10 since October 14, 2018, 1281 days — yes, a full 183 weeks later. The last time Spieth was ranked in the top ten, the world number one was Brooks Koepka, and now in the top five, Colin Morikawa and Victor Hofland, who are still in college for a year before they can turn professional...
Winning the Game of Heritage golf also paid Spieth $1.44 million (about 9.16 million yuan) for the championship prize – which brought his PGA Tour career jackpot to $50578855, surpassing the "$50 million mark" milestone – becoming the 11th player in history to reach this number after Woods, Mickelson, DJ, Furyk, Singer, Wheat, Scott, Rose, Kuchar and Garcia!
It is worth mentioning that the Sunday on the day of the final round coincides with the Western traditional "Easter Sunday". And Spieth won the Texas Open on April 4 last year, which was also "Easter Sunday." If "winning the championship as soon as Easter arrives" becomes a "habit" of Peter Pan, then next year's "Easter Sunday", he will usher in a big day - the final round of the 2023 Masters!
"This is definitely positive energy!" When asked by reporters about the hope of winning another "Masters + Easter" next year, Spieth replied with a smile.
Speaking of the Masters, for Spieth, it has a more or less "crucifixion" taste before the resurrection. In the first Grand Slam of the past year, Spieth only played two rounds of 74-76, and for the first time, Augusta, who had won the championship and reached the top ten five times, swallowed the bitter fruit of not qualifying for the first time!
A week before winning the title, Spieth failed to qualify for the Masters
Even more embarrassing, on the 12th hole of the "Amen Cape", which once made him unforgettable, Spieth once again recreated the tragedy of the 2016 crash - he attacked the green twice and shot a 6 in this par 3 hole! Spieth, who was eliminated in the "magic spell", did not accept an interview after the game. The other players who witnessed this scene were not so much sympathetic as they were glad that the tragedy did not happen to them.
"I'm thankful to be able to keep the pa in that hole. Because I saw Jordan hit the ball in the air, blown back by the wind and fell into the water. Hofland, who was in the same group as Spieth, said.
"In the group in front of us, Jordan hit the ball twice and went into the water. That's definitely not something that people can easily watch. McIlroy added.
It wasn't until the press conference before the traditional golf tournament that Spieth finally revealed his chagrin at the First Masters exit.
Spieth broke Amen Cape again after six years
"I've never been there before without qualifying, and I've rarely even been in the title race, so I hate this failure." Spieth admits, "It was the worst time of my entire golf career. ”
"The Masters is my favorite game in the world. Actually I didn't play badly, I was in very, very good shape throughout the spring, better than a year ago, but I didn't score. To be honest, I don't think I'm going to fail to qualify and I can't figure out why I shot a 6 (on the 12th hole)..."
To be sure, Spieth is much more courageous today than he was when he was caught in the "championship drought" in previous years – since the beginning of 2021, he has won two championships, three runners-up (including last year's British Open), two third places, and is in the top ten in as many as 11 matches. However, it is worth noting that Spieth's pusher skills that had been "alone" in his early years have had a relatively large decline this season.
This season's PGA Tour, his "scoring putter" statistic, only ranked 179th on the Tour! The negative value of -430 means that Spieth loses an average of 0.43 strokes per putt than the full lineup. In the 12 PGA Tour games this season, Spieth's push success rate was only 39.22%, ranking 138th. The three-push green tragedy has appeared as many as 18 times.
The most bizarre thing is that the "shortest" 3 feet, that is, within 0.9 meters of the putter, Spieth has actually lost 5 times this season, ranking 8th from the bottom of the 209 players counted by the PGA Tour! And just three weeks ago at the Texas Open, and in the third round of this week's championship-winning Heritage Golf Tournament, the tragedy of 3 pushes within 3 feet happened twice!
Spieth missed a half-yard putter in the third round
Even Peter Pan's wife couldn't look at it anymore. "Anne said to me last night: 'You're going to have to wait 5 seconds.'" "She never commented on my golf, but she said, 'If you miss the putter, it's better to wait 5 seconds before pushing.'" So, there were a couple of times when I was playing today when I wanted to push things, but I remembered her words, no, I have to spend 5 seconds. ”
But at the same time that the putting magic is no longer there, we also see that Spieth used his digging rod to stage the classic cutting pitch of the four-seater again and again. On Morning 2 this morning, he cut straight into the cup 19 yards out of the bunker and played the counter-attack horn with an eagle ball! Not to mention the extra hole, also in the bunker, almost the same 18 yard distance, he once again narrowly cut the ball into the hole, but enough to take Cantley and get the championship in hand!
At the 2017 Travellers Championship, Spieth and caddie celebrate
Spieth's most classic win in life was the 2017 Travellers Championship, where he went straight from the bunker to the hole to catch birds in the overtime race! In the past year, with the recovery of the state, Peter Pan's digging pole stunt has been staged many times on the competition stage.
For example, in the first round of the 2021 Masters, this bunker ball he staged on the 15th hole shot directly at the Eagle:
Still last year's Masters, on the 10th hole in the third round, he cut straight into the hole from the fairway and grabbed the birdie:
Another example is the third round of the 2021 PGA Championship, Spieth from 15 yards away, all the subtlety of the direct bird:
Of course, Peter Pan's most shocking moment of digging up the pole occurred at the Ryder Cup. On the first day of the four-man two-goal match, Spieth scored a "fairy save ball" on the grassy 90-degree slope of The 17th hole of Wuthering Heights, a completely blind position! This high-throw ball beyond human imagination is enough to enter the century-old history of the European and American confrontations:
Spieth, who no longer "relies" on the putter to win, seems to be entering a new chapter of "resurrection" under the blessing of fortune again and again. And 4 weeks later, the second Grand Slam of 2022 - the PGA Championship is about to be staged - from the "Grand Slam" great, the only trophy of Texas Peter Pan, whether we can spread their wings again, let us wait and see!
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